COVID-19 has precipitated a massive social experiment – the sudden shift of millions of knowledge workers from...
Tag: ritual
Holidays and the Anticipation of Ritual
PechaKucha Presentation: COVID-19 disrupted so much. It also disrupted rituals, holidays and events on an incredible scale. Many of us lost track of time without these expected markers. But 2021 is all about a new perspective. I found myself anticipating and wanting to engage with rituals as never...
The Org Chart as Political Map-Making
A senior leadership team gathers in the executive boardroom. The doors are closed; the glass is opaque. Sparkling water is served. Projected on the conference screen is not a financial statement, or an operating report, but instead, an intricate diagram resembling a map or relational lineage. The...
Performing Magical Capitalism
Systems of Magic at Work Today Central Bank capitalism, Islamic finance, World Economic Forum meetings, contracts, profit ⎼ these are not the themes that generally come to mind when we think about magic. In industrialized societies we tend to believe that we’ve “outgrown” it; in 1929...
How to Create Value via Object Circulation in Gift-Systems
Gift-systems build relationships and create various types of value for the individuals who participate in them. Organizations may also reap the benefits of gift-systems when they understand, support, and foster practices of object circulation within these systems. We adopt a theoretical framework...
i remember you NOW. i remember you HOW:
My mom’s recent death left behind a heartbroken daughter who could not fathom the huge vacancy in her life—amidst a societal expectation that one can rapidly move on. Instead of my grieving process tidily expiring shortly after the funeral, I was saturating myself in her: wearing her clothing,...
The Ritual of Lean
There are many ways to view Lean. Lean is a business science. It is a product development method. And in many ways, it is a communication medium. In my research with startups, I’ve also heard Lean referred to as a religion. If Lean is a “religion” in the new startup era, I’d like to propose...
Business, Anthropology, and Magical Systems: The Case of Advertising
Magic is one of the oldest subjects of discussion and theorizing in anthropology. From time to time, anthropologists, as well as other scholars from other disciplines, have suggested that magic is not specific to “primitive” societies, but is alive and well in contemporary industrialised...
Quotidian Ritual and Work-Life Balance: An Ethnography of Not Being There
This paper reports on current interdisciplinary design research that explores values held by individuals in their performance of everyday or ‘quotidian’ rituals in family life. The work is focused on mobile workers who may be away from home and family for extended and/or regular periods of time....
Role of the Ephemeral in Recovery and Renewal
Installed during the Tohoku earthquake relief fundraising event, CONCERT FOR JAPAN, at Japan Society in New York City on April 2011, the Luminous Washi Lanterns was a meditation and celebration of renewal through light and impermanent materials. The paper examines the role of the ephemeral from...